Katherine Finn-Gamino’s Embroidered Flowers

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Creativity Explored (CE) artist Katherine Finn-Gamino created hundreds of colorful embroidered flowers during SIP, building on skills she first learned at Creativity Explored. When viewed together, Finn-Gamino’s floral compilations amaze us, pulling our attention to individual flowers while allowing us to marvel at the impact of the work in its entirety. 

Finn-Gamino joined CE in 2011, and is a versatile artist using watercolor, ink, marker, and textiles to create unique, meaningful works of art. For this MCD@Home project, we are thrilled to focus on Finn-Gamino’s textile practice, influences of which are apparent in the artist’s designs featured in Mode Brut.

We are grateful to Finn-Gamino for teaching us about her craft and have co-authored the instructions to her felt flower embroidery practice below!

INSTRUCTIONS

• Cut out a square of felt fabric.
• Use black pen or sharpie to draw an image (flower) on the felt.
• Thread embroidery floss through the needle, with the needle at the half-point of the floss. 
• Knot the embroidery floss ends together. 
• Hold felt in your non-dominant hand and needle and floss in dominant hand.
• Begin by poking the needle through the black outline from the bottom of the felt, at whichever starting point you like.
• Thread floss up through the felt, pull across the design, then poke needle down, through the outline. 
• Continue pulling embroidery floss through the felt to fill in your image with your desired colors.
• Trim and tie knot in any loose ends.
• Once complete you can add your design to a fashion like a jacket, or textile.

RELATED RESOURCES

• Katherine Finn-Gamino often integrates repeated shapes of different styles and sizes into her art. Learn about her process and see her work in action in this 2012 Creativity Explored video.  
• Read more about Katherine Finn-Gamino’s experience creating for Mode Brut:
  • MCD: Where do you find inspiration? 
    • Finn-Gamino: Flowers.
  • What is your favorite material to work with? Why?
    • Fabric. I like using different colors. 
  • How do you make art and come up with your ideas?
    • I use a black pen and my head [points to head].
  • What part of making art for Mode Brut have you liked the most?
    • I like fashion.
  • What has been the hardest part about making art for Mode Brut?
    • Putting the flowers on it.

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